Tracing the Evolution of Buddhist and Nyāya Views on Non-Conceptual Perception

Abstract

<p>This paper seeks to explain one of the few points on which Buddhist and Nyāya philosophers actually came to an agreement -- namely, that non-conceptual perceptions (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa) are states of awareness which do not involve any attribution of names or predicative properties to objects ("nāmajātyādiyojanārahita"). I trace the evolution of Buddhist and Nyāya views on nirvikalpaka- pratyakṣa, and claim that there is a common trend in their development from Vasubandhu to Dignāga, and from Vātsyāyana to Vācaspati Miśra and Gaṅgeśa. That trend, I suggest, can be illuminated with a distinction made in contemporary discussions of non-conceptual content between "state non-conceptualism" and "content non-conceptualism." On my reading, both Buddhist and Nyāya thinkers ultimately shifted from presuming state non-conceptualism to advocating forms of content non-conceptualism. To explain this shift, I cite two philosophical and exegetical reasons. First, contemporary defenders of non-conceptualism have argued that the state view is ultimately untenable, and collapses into a content view. Second, Buddhists and Naiyāyikas came to view concept-possession as grounded upon the operation of memory-traces (saṃskāra), rather than on linguistic mastery. With this refined theory of concept- possession, the line between non-conceptual and concept-laden states was preservable only through positing an essential difference between non-conceptual and conceptual contents. Finally, I examine how, even having reached a shared definition of nirvikalpaka perception, the different theoretical commitments of Navya Nyāya and Buddhism led to a divergence over the conscious character of non-conceptual states. This divergence motivates us to consider how the conceptual structure of perceptual contents may be linked with their availability to consciousness.</p>